That's mostly true. But what also matters is the price of the joules captured by other technologies, given the same energy and dollar investment (among other resources). Like other solar tech, such as biofuels.
It doesn't sound like an interesting renewable energy source. To anyone who understands basic physics, it sounds like a fictional perpetual-motion machine. The energy to create the tornado has to move all that air in circles, then less gets captured by the turbines, wasting energy, not generating any.
Synthetic tornadoes are useful if they're actually like natural tornadoes. Especially if we can develop machines to safely capture energy from the natural ones. But people who think we can "create" energy by transducing it ought to be more like spectators in this research, just like watching _The Wizard of Oz_. Newton, he man behind the curtain, might not be a wizard, but the laws he noticed still apply, even in Kansas and Utah (though perhaps no longer in their schools).
I fear that US bullying is driving the French into the arms of the Chinese. The French will have the largest state in the EU, helping define its policy and culture much as does California in the US. If we can't retain our alliance while maintaining our leadership, we'll create unbeatable competition abroad. Short-term tactical victories at the expense of longterm strategic catastrophes is the hallmark of the society represented by the current administration. The juggernaut of American military growth (bigger than the rest of the planet combined) is testimony to the comensurate weakening of our powers of persuasion. Poorly written tough letters from heads of state demonstrate how much of our influence is derived from our force, rather than our draw. That way lies destruction.
These buckyfilm batteries still have a way to go. At 100mWh:cm^2, rolled around gaps for methanol flow, they might get 1W:cm^2, which is 3.6Mj:liter. Battery volumetric energy density about 1Mj:l, while the same (biased) source reports their own sodium borohydride offers 26.3Mj:l, (over 7x), while the more practical and directly comparable DMFCs they mention from their competitors offer about 17.3Mj:l (4.8x).
The buckyfilm offers a flexible material, which combined with tactile sensor fabrics and flexible displays will make mobile computing even more convenient. With this early effort already within 20% of the efficiency of inflexible DMFCs, we might be very close to smart clothes and upholstery, integrating computing into all common devices without transforming them into "computers". That might sound pretty dull, but "pedestrian" has come to mean both "completely ordinary" and "conveniently mobile". Fabric is one of the older technologies on which our civilization is based, and revolutionized us when we became smart. Maybe its time to do it again by returning the favor.
Why depend on the current failing "disposable" infrastructure, like buying replacements at convenience stores ("bodegas" in American)? How about rechargers that draw wall power to generate methanol (CH3OH) from water (H2)) and air (CO2, O2, Ar)? Even better, how about a fuelcell powered by natural gas (CH4, C2H6, C3H8, C4H10, H2S) from existing pipes that generates methanol (and pure water)? The distributed system would sequester dangerous atmospheric carbon, reduce the packaging waste and replacement energy. Even if convenience stores are available, they too could recharge the cells themselves, recycling empty cells, or offer a machine that recharges from their storage, like BBQ propane tank refillers (or gas stations for that matter). The more we fix the old wasteful energy distribution problems as part of the package as we inevitably "switchover" to the new systems, the more likely will be the success of keeping all the gains. Convenience is the name of the game, not just new batteries.
I'm running Open-Xchange, an OSS groupware suite that, among other features, can transparently replace (mostly) Microsoft Exchange. OX uses OpenLDAP, though it can (in theory) use any LDAP directory server, including the FDS. OX uses Postgres as its default RDBMS for its data tier, but OpenLDAP stores its data internally. OX has some limits on its integration of directory data, because the rest of the app can't connect to the OpenLDAP storage - that means some sync issues, and some data is defacto read-only by both server apps and clients.
There are posted techniques for pointing OpenLDAP at MySQL instead of itself, which seem to offer a way to point at Postgres. Does FDS let me easily point at Postgres for all persistent storage? Or even at Oracle (as OX could do)? Where's the HOWTO?
This letter was sent to the UK, both currently presiding over the EU, and inventor of the language in which the letter was sent, also presumably spoken by Secretary Rice. But it's not even grammatically correct:
" We regret [that]the recent positions on Internet governance(i.e., the "new cooperation model") offered by the European Union, the Presidency of which is currently held by the United Kingdom, seems to propose just that - a new structure of intergovernmental control over the Internet.
The four principles the United States issues [issued] on June 30, 2005, reinforce the continuing U.S. commitment to the Internet's security and stability, including through [sic]the historical U.S. role in authorizing changes or modifications to the authoritative root zone file."
I doubt Rice composed the text of the letter. But I expect her to read it before accepting, signing and directing its transmission. And I expect her to notice that she's representing the US with illiteracy. These people are extremely powerful. They could at least learn to write, or read, before being trusted with thinking, deciding, and communicating. That's the sum total of their job, and they don't appear to be very good at it.
Just because the EU backed down in the face of the US defense of our position doesn't mean they respect it. And letters like this certainly do nothing to defend the US from our new reputation of being governed by dumb people with expensive educations, backed mostly by overwhelming force. When working with partners with whom we have competitive interests, we have to show strength, and be right. And we also have to demonstrate at every turn that we are consummate professionals. Otherwise they have reason to doubt that we're competent to do everything right for which we're demanding responsibility, which weakens our position not through substance, but through the style which can be used against us by asymmetrically disadvantaged competitors. We won this one, but at what cost to our momentum for the next confrontation?
When the US monopoly decision on Microsoft was official, and the "remedy" phase was at hand, many of us discussed the merits of splitting MS into nonmonopoly units. The MS "vertical" monopoly, its stack of OS/app/dev/content that excluded competitors in fact and overwhelming advantage, was fundamentally anticompetitive. So we talked about the benefits of splitting it into at least those four units, (maybe a fifth for "other", or maybe a sixth for "networks" including Comcast shares and the like). Then requiring they make partnerships on a nonpreferential (to each other) basis. There was consensus that the resulting sum of the divided parts would be worth more in stockmarket capitalization, revenues and penetration of other markets, whicle leaving lots of large niches in which other companies could compete, even a chance for other (or new) companies to seize leadership, or for units to (gasp) go out of business if they couldn't compete on merit.
Instead, the most popular remedy suggested by the most influential spectators, the Wall Street Journal crowd, was "horizontal" split into smaller microcosms: MS1, MS2, MS3 - just cut them down to size, retaining all the same operations, and fight each other. FWIW, does anyone even know what the MS remedy actually was (is), other than oversight by a nanny judge? And how the new regime compares to the old in specific metrics accepted by the judge who determined MS was a monopoly? In any event, MS is still an anticompetitive juggernaut, as subsequent state monopoly lawsuits demonstrate, as well as the news in any given month, and especially to anyone trying to actually compete with MS even in their areas of vapor competence.
This is, of course, exactly the same pattern as the paradigmmatic monopoly breakup: AT&T. The "Baby Bells" were little "Ma Bells", regional monopolies which were smaller, but just as anticompetitive. Until cable companies like Time Warner recently started offering phone service, they continued their local service monopolies. Though long distance immediately became competitive - the AT&T monopoly action was brought by MCI, which found it couldn't compete with a monopoly, regardless of its merit. The MS monopoly decision also was the result of a competitor bringing action: Netscape, which claimed (correctly) that MS violation of a prior court consent decree not to bundle IE with Windows illegally interfered with its ability to compete. Netscape, of course, was bought up by AOL by the time of the monopoly decision, as the anticompetition took its toll, while AOL also bought Time Warner, as people believed (among other fantasies) that the AOL combination could compete with MS better than Time Warner could, especially if it was also Time Warner, and once MS was divested of its monopoly advantage. That turned out to be wrong, in several essential ways.
But recall that the vertical split was believed to offer greater collective return to shareholders. And that it would offer the benefits of competition to consumers, from price to quality, as well as market opportunities for vendors. Icahn apparently believes that is the case. Bill Gates, an even larger holder of MS shares than Icahn is of TW shares, has the benefit of a single manageable empire to compensate for the tradeoff of potentially more $billions in returns on his shares. Is there a good example of a monopoly, especially a tech one, that was split into its vertical components? Bundling is the most powerful competitive tool, short of IP monopoly, in the tech business. It seems clear to many people that vertical splits are the proper remedy to protect the market, and even benefit shareholders at the ego expense of executives. Which ones can we study for actual market results, and compare with these others, which have gone the other way - and usually remain monopolies in different guise?
PocketPCs that can run Linux go for $100 used. How about a $1300 1.3TB RAID in one room, and a $500 cluster of 5 of those in the media room, with one dedicated to video-out for an extra $500? That sounds like a wicked, silent mediaroom PC that can also do a lot more.
You might be swapping "David Gans and Friends" soundboards. But I'm not, like practically all of us. So none of the music we're exchanging was made by Gans. FWIW, the soundboards of Gans' bands are still up on Archive.org . Because there's no market for them. Without the free distribution, Gans wouldn't have the marketing, the same audience, make the same money off the stuff he can charge for.
"The Internet Archive and all the other online distribution sources are high-speed, mass-distribution systems that make the best quality recording available to all who know where to look for them. That is a good thing, of course, culturally--but there is an economic element to this that must be taken into account."
I have the right to be secure in my papers and effects. The Constitution says that. And it says how the government can and must use its powers. I don't know what Constitution you're reading, or what you think rights are. But to me, those truths are self-evident.
Well, as I said, Jim told me that himself. You can scramble to dispute even the simple facts of Jim's tenure during that timeframe, then accuse me of speculation and shoveling shit on you. I have made the responsible decision to accept your denial until I can challenge Jim with it, which is an indefinite timeframe. Likewise for Oswald - what else can I tell you? Chant your denial as much as you like; I already told you I would exercise appropriate discretion now that you've taken the time to address it.
But I'm much more interested in your defense of (some of) the Dead's new policy: "they now want to remove all Dead music from the Web" (Barlow). Sure, you had a contract for commercial radio broadcasts of the Dead's music. And I've only complimented you on what the public has gotten from your lucrative, fun and chosen career, especially considering how much total bullshit comes with any job in the music business. I haven't called your motives "foul", though they do seem selfserving - both at first, and now with your defense, which doesn't address the central issue which I'll repeat again. You can wave around the "American Disease" of unmitigated selfinterest, with its cute "I'm in the collective" accessory, but you have stood up to defend the monetizing of noncommercial recordings to which of course you will continue to get your customary access. I'm sorry to hear you're sick, that you've sacrificed so much to get on and off the bus whenever you like, but you have to defend the obviously selfserving comments you've made that strike at the heart of the community which is most of "the Grateful Dead" at this point. Invent whining about someone calling you a bad guy for your books and publicizing the music all you want, but of course that does nothing but undermine the credibility you've done nothing to service, though you've had such ample opportunity - including this thread.
The GD archive as you apparently think about it hasn't been open to the public, but the "archive" to which I refer is Archive.org. Which is now forced underground - where the actual profiteering bootleggers will exploit Deadheads where that was not possible before. You can ignore that simple dynamic, which I'm sure you understand - it underlies the entire success of the entire business that is your career, if not your life. But you ignore it at your peril.
You might not care, but I do care to understand how you could rationalize your stance. It's clear that you can't. All you've got is a load of distractions, guilt-tripping, and gloating - the doubletalk I first referred to. In the report we're discussing, in this thread and on your blog. Thanks for the memories, and no thanks for your part in the tainting of one of the Dead's greatest contributions to the culture they helped create. You might be sick of it, but you're going to have to live with it, and your rationalizations, for the rest of your life. Maybe Lesh can explain it to you, since you ignore my words: I'm just a Deadhead, just about a hundred shows to my credit, just a few dozen people whose lives I "turned on" by pointing them at Archive.org. I miss Jerry.
"Let there be songs to fill the air." - Ripple, The Grateful Dead
What a twit you are, Anonymous fairy Coward. As I said, rights exist independently of the Constitution or any law - not independently of people. You made that up, silly fairy.
Well, you deny it, but Jim Olness told it to me directly in those archives when I visited him, as we were casual friends in the late 1980s and early 1990s. I mentioned your name innocuously, and Jim told me that little story. Since you deny it, I'll refrain from repeating it until I ask Jim sometime to corroborate or revise his story. If Jim made it up, or I somehow got facts wrong after 15 years, I apologize - because I probably won't get a chance to do so knowing that I repeated something false about you, if in fact it was.
As for Grey Folded, I do indeed like it - I'm glad an outsider had access to such complete, high quality archives to produce such remix. I note that closing those archives to the public makes such further work less likely. I also like John Oswald's other work, which I've seen him perform on saxophone and heard in recordings. If I get a chance to talk to him again, I'll ask him what he thinks of Jim's story.
But what have you got to say about the subject at hand? I mentioned that story because it seemed to resonate with the context of your own proprietary attitude towards archive contents. I understand your defense of the "economic element" which favors your inside career by restricting access to the soundboards. But how can you tack that on to the "good [..] culturally" value of the love of music, global enlightenment and turning on friends you mention? Sure, there are ways to make money from the music, as the band did when they performed it, sell various recordings, and all the other commerce supported by the live show traders throughout the years. But nothing in the value of those Deadhead exchanges is supported by the "economic element" that equates to the careers you and the members of the Dead have had, enabled by exactly that enlightened policy on recordings. Now that only Phil is making money off making music, it's an interesting coincidence that the lines of apparent greed break down in exactly that way. It's also interesting that Phil's book describes how poorly the band organization managed their success and large money intake. Essentially generating a large group of people dependent on the income of a small group of talented hard workers, unreasonable to expect to last for even the 30 years of actual musicmaking. Now that the money is thinning, just as a music is becoming as part of the American folk heritage as was the music the band rightfully appropriated when they started, the greed and desperation is becoming evident.
In your blog you complain about the "entitlement" crowd - which sounds a lot like you, who never made any of the music we're exchanging, who has made a career from a fun radio show and some books. Maybe Deadheads think we're "entitled" to the recordings that the Dead either sanctioned or allowed for decades, the exchange of which they relied on for the promotion that neither they nor the rest of the music business could muster.
I do appreciate the spotlight of irony I've somehow earned, when I get to point out to a member of the GD family that the soundboards are already in circulation - too late to close the barn door. That this move only creates a profit motive for commercial distributors of the soundboards, who actually do compete with GDP for finite dollars available for GD products. That the blow to the GD image, especially in such a central part of the GD actual existence now, will hurt the market, and make other music more attractive to the buying public. The genius insight into the mutually supporting relationship between band and fans in Jerry's famous pronouncement "after we're done with making it, people can do whatever they want with it" (paraphrase) was good enough to inspire generations to love the Dead's music, as well as buy lots of it. Thanks for the chance to explain that wisdom to an established member of the last generation with the insights of a free younger person. I feel like I just dosed Kesey.
BTW, who stole the "hammer and tong" comment in your blog from whom: you or Barlow? Or is it just serendipity, or some kind of lateral flashback?
So why does the "virus network" require separate honeypots? Why can't the existing servers detect the viruses the same way the honeypots would, and notify each other?
The Constitution specifies how the government is to protect our rights. Those rights exist independently of the Constitution or any law. The laws, and the government, are created by the people to protect our rights.
Google might actually honor that promise not to share the callee info. But what about their cutrate knockoff competitors? The US needs privacy laws like the EU. You'd think that the Constitutional "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated" would protect our "papers and effects" against searches violating representations of privacy, but it obviously isn't. A new privacy amendment would be great, but Americans have been so numbed lately by threats to amend the Constitution to discrimimate against gays and protect flags that it won't even be seriously considered. We could try a federal law, and when that's not enough, maybe get the amendment to protect this fundamental right. Easy abuse of personal info in convenience features like this Google feature will set the stage.
Why do they need dedicated honeypots? Why not just include software in SMTP servers that lets them notify each other when they identify a virus locally? An SMTP operator could subscribe to several dozen peers, in a network of trust. When their own threshold of peers reporting the same virus is reached, they've got a hit.
Maybe this is a good application for the Usenet tech, to flood the trust networks with info rapidly, reliably, and without a centralized authority that itself can be attacked or otherwise compromised. Most of this tech already exists. We don't need 800K new servers that do nothing else, when we've got even more that also serve mail. Maybe the researchers are setting up a spinoff security network. But their research actually points to a better system than relying on them for more than the starting point.
How come the insane anti-American tyrannists who favor guns also favor Bush's trashing the Posse Comitatus Act, which prevents Bush from commandeering National Guards and effectively invading American states, without the required invitation of the state governor?
You try to make a practical argument for private guns, to oppose the Federal military. But the practical reality is that such ragtag opposition would be mowed down - the best we could hope for is an Iraq-style meatgrinder. And I can't compare Americans' will to resist to that of the organized, financed, trained (by Saddam, foreigners and the US) Iraqi insurgents, hardened over generations. In practical terms, such American resistance would just justify more military killing and suppression, and make the government look justified in wiping out "hooligans" as they'd inevitably be represented in the media. Big gangs like the Bloods, Crips, Latin Kings would have superiority - and it's obvious that their keeping and bearing arms is doing a lot more harm than any theoretical good.
The practical role for the people to counterbalance Federal tyranny is long overdue. Questioning the media PR for current tyranny and lies. Resisting the force-backed attacks by unaccountable police and lawyers (like the UnPatriot Act). And organizing to hold politicians accountable for sending our soldiers into corporate wars before sending them back to enforce martial law or other contrived coups on our liberty. All this wasted time, dividing the people on dangerous hobbies, has damaged the unity that is our most important asset in resisting any tyranny. No surprise that the tyranny level has risen so far already. Maybe if we were to regain all that lost ground, we could proceed to crank down our so often abused standing army, and try the militia model. Until then, the actual enemy is proven and obvious.
No, the US paid for its oil illegally, as it says a mere two sentences prior in the article to which I linked: "In all, Berkovitz said that the 525 million barrels of Iraqi oil -- about 660,000 barrels per day -- that ended up in U.S. hands during the two-year surcharge period amounted to $118 million in illegal surcharges paid to Iraq by the United States".
The next two sentences say "Bayoil was responsible for importing 200 million of the 525 million barrels of oil received by the United States, he said. The committee singled out the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control, which the United Nations repeatedly warned about Bayoil's scheme".
So you're just lying to attack me. You probably don't even hesitate long enough to click the link I posted. You don't care about Oil for Food, Iraq, the truth or anything else. You just lurk around waiting for a chance to call me childish names and lie about real matters that concern real adults. Get out of the way and take your petty vendettas out on yourself.
'"This means that oil imported into the U.S. financed about 52 percent of the illegal surcharges paid to the Hussein regime... These percentages roughly correspond to the percentages of Iraqi oil sent to the U.S. and elsewhere during this period," Berkovitz said'
In other words, America accounted for more of the Oil for Food scams than everyone else combined, even excluding foreign proxies for Americans. I think the French word for that is "touché", or maybe "merde de taureau".
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That's mostly true. But what also matters is the price of the joules captured by other technologies, given the same energy and dollar investment (among other resources). Like other solar tech, such as biofuels.
"regard" ;)
It doesn't sound like an interesting renewable energy source. To anyone who understands basic physics, it sounds like a fictional perpetual-motion machine. The energy to create the tornado has to move all that air in circles, then less gets captured by the turbines, wasting energy, not generating any.
Synthetic tornadoes are useful if they're actually like natural tornadoes. Especially if we can develop machines to safely capture energy from the natural ones. But people who think we can "create" energy by transducing it ought to be more like spectators in this research, just like watching _The Wizard of Oz_. Newton, he man behind the curtain, might not be a wizard, but the laws he noticed still apply, even in Kansas and Utah (though perhaps no longer in their schools).
I fear that US bullying is driving the French into the arms of the Chinese. The French will have the largest state in the EU, helping define its policy and culture much as does California in the US. If we can't retain our alliance while maintaining our leadership, we'll create unbeatable competition abroad. Short-term tactical victories at the expense of longterm strategic catastrophes is the hallmark of the society represented by the current administration. The juggernaut of American military growth (bigger than the rest of the planet combined) is testimony to the comensurate weakening of our powers of persuasion. Poorly written tough letters from heads of state demonstrate how much of our influence is derived from our force, rather than our draw. That way lies destruction.
These buckyfilm batteries still have a way to go. At 100mWh:cm^2, rolled around gaps for methanol flow, they might get 1W:cm^2, which is 3.6Mj:liter. Battery volumetric energy density about 1Mj:l, while the same (biased) source reports their own sodium borohydride offers 26.3Mj:l, (over 7x), while the more practical and directly comparable DMFCs they mention from their competitors offer about 17.3Mj:l (4.8x).
The buckyfilm offers a flexible material, which combined with tactile sensor fabrics and flexible displays will make mobile computing even more convenient. With this early effort already within 20% of the efficiency of inflexible DMFCs, we might be very close to smart clothes and upholstery, integrating computing into all common devices without transforming them into "computers". That might sound pretty dull, but "pedestrian" has come to mean both "completely ordinary" and "conveniently mobile". Fabric is one of the older technologies on which our civilization is based, and revolutionized us when we became smart. Maybe its time to do it again by returning the favor.
Why depend on the current failing "disposable" infrastructure, like buying replacements at convenience stores ("bodegas" in American)? How about rechargers that draw wall power to generate methanol (CH3OH) from water (H2)) and air (CO2, O2, Ar)? Even better, how about a fuelcell powered by natural gas (CH4, C2H6, C3H8, C4H10, H2S) from existing pipes that generates methanol (and pure water)? The distributed system would sequester dangerous atmospheric carbon, reduce the packaging waste and replacement energy. Even if convenience stores are available, they too could recharge the cells themselves, recycling empty cells, or offer a machine that recharges from their storage, like BBQ propane tank refillers (or gas stations for that matter). The more we fix the old wasteful energy distribution problems as part of the package as we inevitably "switchover" to the new systems, the more likely will be the success of keeping all the gains. Convenience is the name of the game, not just new batteries.
Sounds like a better energy strategy than, say, invading Iraq.
I'm running Open-Xchange, an OSS groupware suite that, among other features, can transparently replace (mostly) Microsoft Exchange. OX uses OpenLDAP, though it can (in theory) use any LDAP directory server, including the FDS. OX uses Postgres as its default RDBMS for its data tier, but OpenLDAP stores its data internally. OX has some limits on its integration of directory data, because the rest of the app can't connect to the OpenLDAP storage - that means some sync issues, and some data is defacto read-only by both server apps and clients.
There are posted techniques for pointing OpenLDAP at MySQL instead of itself, which seem to offer a way to point at Postgres. Does FDS let me easily point at Postgres for all persistent storage? Or even at Oracle (as OX could do)? Where's the HOWTO?
This letter was sent to the UK, both currently presiding over the EU, and inventor of the language in which the letter was sent, also presumably spoken by Secretary Rice. But it's not even grammatically correct:
" We regret [that]the recent positions on Internet governance(i.e., the "new cooperation model") offered by the European Union, the Presidency of which is currently held by the United Kingdom, seems to propose just that - a new structure of intergovernmental control over the Internet.
The four principles the United States issues [issued] on June 30, 2005, reinforce the continuing U.S. commitment to the Internet's security and stability, including through [sic]the historical U.S. role in authorizing changes or modifications to the authoritative root zone file."
I doubt Rice composed the text of the letter. But I expect her to read it before accepting, signing and directing its transmission. And I expect her to notice that she's representing the US with illiteracy. These people are extremely powerful. They could at least learn to write, or read, before being trusted with thinking, deciding, and communicating. That's the sum total of their job, and they don't appear to be very good at it.
Just because the EU backed down in the face of the US defense of our position doesn't mean they respect it. And letters like this certainly do nothing to defend the US from our new reputation of being governed by dumb people with expensive educations, backed mostly by overwhelming force. When working with partners with whom we have competitive interests, we have to show strength, and be right. And we also have to demonstrate at every turn that we are consummate professionals. Otherwise they have reason to doubt that we're competent to do everything right for which we're demanding responsibility, which weakens our position not through substance, but through the style which can be used against us by asymmetrically disadvantaged competitors. We won this one, but at what cost to our momentum for the next confrontation?
When the US monopoly decision on Microsoft was official, and the "remedy" phase was at hand, many of us discussed the merits of splitting MS into nonmonopoly units. The MS "vertical" monopoly, its stack of OS/app/dev/content that excluded competitors in fact and overwhelming advantage, was fundamentally anticompetitive. So we talked about the benefits of splitting it into at least those four units, (maybe a fifth for "other", or maybe a sixth for "networks" including Comcast shares and the like). Then requiring they make partnerships on a nonpreferential (to each other) basis. There was consensus that the resulting sum of the divided parts would be worth more in stockmarket capitalization, revenues and penetration of other markets, whicle leaving lots of large niches in which other companies could compete, even a chance for other (or new) companies to seize leadership, or for units to (gasp) go out of business if they couldn't compete on merit.
Instead, the most popular remedy suggested by the most influential spectators, the Wall Street Journal crowd, was "horizontal" split into smaller microcosms: MS1, MS2, MS3 - just cut them down to size, retaining all the same operations, and fight each other. FWIW, does anyone even know what the MS remedy actually was (is), other than oversight by a nanny judge? And how the new regime compares to the old in specific metrics accepted by the judge who determined MS was a monopoly? In any event, MS is still an anticompetitive juggernaut, as subsequent state monopoly lawsuits demonstrate, as well as the news in any given month, and especially to anyone trying to actually compete with MS even in their areas of vapor competence.
This is, of course, exactly the same pattern as the paradigmmatic monopoly breakup: AT&T. The "Baby Bells" were little "Ma Bells", regional monopolies which were smaller, but just as anticompetitive. Until cable companies like Time Warner recently started offering phone service, they continued their local service monopolies. Though long distance immediately became competitive - the AT&T monopoly action was brought by MCI, which found it couldn't compete with a monopoly, regardless of its merit. The MS monopoly decision also was the result of a competitor bringing action: Netscape, which claimed (correctly) that MS violation of a prior court consent decree not to bundle IE with Windows illegally interfered with its ability to compete. Netscape, of course, was bought up by AOL by the time of the monopoly decision, as the anticompetition took its toll, while AOL also bought Time Warner, as people believed (among other fantasies) that the AOL combination could compete with MS better than Time Warner could, especially if it was also Time Warner, and once MS was divested of its monopoly advantage. That turned out to be wrong, in several essential ways.
But recall that the vertical split was believed to offer greater collective return to shareholders. And that it would offer the benefits of competition to consumers, from price to quality, as well as market opportunities for vendors. Icahn apparently believes that is the case. Bill Gates, an even larger holder of MS shares than Icahn is of TW shares, has the benefit of a single manageable empire to compensate for the tradeoff of potentially more $billions in returns on his shares. Is there a good example of a monopoly, especially a tech one, that was split into its vertical components? Bundling is the most powerful competitive tool, short of IP monopoly, in the tech business. It seems clear to many people that vertical splits are the proper remedy to protect the market, and even benefit shareholders at the ego expense of executives. Which ones can we study for actual market results, and compare with these others, which have gone the other way - and usually remain monopolies in different guise?
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PocketPCs that can run Linux go for $100 used. How about a $1300 1.3TB RAID in one room, and a $500 cluster of 5 of those in the media room, with one dedicated to video-out for an extra $500? That sounds like a wicked, silent mediaroom PC that can also do a lot more.
You might be swapping "David Gans and Friends" soundboards. But I'm not, like practically all of us. So none of the music we're exchanging was made by Gans. FWIW, the soundboards of Gans' bands are still up on Archive.org . Because there's no market for them. Without the free distribution, Gans wouldn't have the marketing, the same audience, make the same money off the stuff he can charge for.
"The Internet Archive and all the other online distribution sources are high-speed, mass-distribution systems that make the best quality recording available to all who know where to look for them. That is a good thing, of course, culturally--but there is an economic element to this that must be taken into account."
I have the right to be secure in my papers and effects. The Constitution says that. And it says how the government can and must use its powers. I don't know what Constitution you're reading, or what you think rights are. But to me, those truths are self-evident.
Well, as I said, Jim told me that himself. You can scramble to dispute even the simple facts of Jim's tenure during that timeframe, then accuse me of speculation and shoveling shit on you. I have made the responsible decision to accept your denial until I can challenge Jim with it, which is an indefinite timeframe. Likewise for Oswald - what else can I tell you? Chant your denial as much as you like; I already told you I would exercise appropriate discretion now that you've taken the time to address it.
But I'm much more interested in your defense of (some of) the Dead's new policy: "they now want to remove all Dead music from the Web" (Barlow). Sure, you had a contract for commercial radio broadcasts of the Dead's music. And I've only complimented you on what the public has gotten from your lucrative, fun and chosen career, especially considering how much total bullshit comes with any job in the music business. I haven't called your motives "foul", though they do seem selfserving - both at first, and now with your defense, which doesn't address the central issue which I'll repeat again. You can wave around the "American Disease" of unmitigated selfinterest, with its cute "I'm in the collective" accessory, but you have stood up to defend the monetizing of noncommercial recordings to which of course you will continue to get your customary access. I'm sorry to hear you're sick, that you've sacrificed so much to get on and off the bus whenever you like, but you have to defend the obviously selfserving comments you've made that strike at the heart of the community which is most of "the Grateful Dead" at this point. Invent whining about someone calling you a bad guy for your books and publicizing the music all you want, but of course that does nothing but undermine the credibility you've done nothing to service, though you've had such ample opportunity - including this thread.
The GD archive as you apparently think about it hasn't been open to the public, but the "archive" to which I refer is Archive.org. Which is now forced underground - where the actual profiteering bootleggers will exploit Deadheads where that was not possible before. You can ignore that simple dynamic, which I'm sure you understand - it underlies the entire success of the entire business that is your career, if not your life. But you ignore it at your peril.
You might not care, but I do care to understand how you could rationalize your stance. It's clear that you can't. All you've got is a load of distractions, guilt-tripping, and gloating - the doubletalk I first referred to. In the report we're discussing, in this thread and on your blog. Thanks for the memories, and no thanks for your part in the tainting of one of the Dead's greatest contributions to the culture they helped create. You might be sick of it, but you're going to have to live with it, and your rationalizations, for the rest of your life. Maybe Lesh can explain it to you, since you ignore my words: I'm just a Deadhead, just about a hundred shows to my credit, just a few dozen people whose lives I "turned on" by pointing them at Archive.org. I miss Jerry.
"Let there be songs to fill the air."
- Ripple, The Grateful Dead
What a twit you are, Anonymous fairy Coward. As I said, rights exist independently of the Constitution or any law - not independently of people. You made that up, silly fairy.
Well, you deny it, but Jim Olness told it to me directly in those archives when I visited him, as we were casual friends in the late 1980s and early 1990s. I mentioned your name innocuously, and Jim told me that little story. Since you deny it, I'll refrain from repeating it until I ask Jim sometime to corroborate or revise his story. If Jim made it up, or I somehow got facts wrong after 15 years, I apologize - because I probably won't get a chance to do so knowing that I repeated something false about you, if in fact it was.
As for Grey Folded, I do indeed like it - I'm glad an outsider had access to such complete, high quality archives to produce such remix. I note that closing those archives to the public makes such further work less likely. I also like John Oswald's other work, which I've seen him perform on saxophone and heard in recordings. If I get a chance to talk to him again, I'll ask him what he thinks of Jim's story.
But what have you got to say about the subject at hand? I mentioned that story because it seemed to resonate with the context of your own proprietary attitude towards archive contents. I understand your defense of the "economic element" which favors your inside career by restricting access to the soundboards. But how can you tack that on to the "good [..] culturally" value of the love of music, global enlightenment and turning on friends you mention? Sure, there are ways to make money from the music, as the band did when they performed it, sell various recordings, and all the other commerce supported by the live show traders throughout the years. But nothing in the value of those Deadhead exchanges is supported by the "economic element" that equates to the careers you and the members of the Dead have had, enabled by exactly that enlightened policy on recordings. Now that only Phil is making money off making music, it's an interesting coincidence that the lines of apparent greed break down in exactly that way. It's also interesting that Phil's book describes how poorly the band organization managed their success and large money intake. Essentially generating a large group of people dependent on the income of a small group of talented hard workers, unreasonable to expect to last for even the 30 years of actual musicmaking. Now that the money is thinning, just as a music is becoming as part of the American folk heritage as was the music the band rightfully appropriated when they started, the greed and desperation is becoming evident.
In your blog you complain about the "entitlement" crowd - which sounds a lot like you, who never made any of the music we're exchanging, who has made a career from a fun radio show and some books. Maybe Deadheads think we're "entitled" to the recordings that the Dead either sanctioned or allowed for decades, the exchange of which they relied on for the promotion that neither they nor the rest of the music business could muster.
I do appreciate the spotlight of irony I've somehow earned, when I get to point out to a member of the GD family that the soundboards are already in circulation - too late to close the barn door. That this move only creates a profit motive for commercial distributors of the soundboards, who actually do compete with GDP for finite dollars available for GD products. That the blow to the GD image, especially in such a central part of the GD actual existence now, will hurt the market, and make other music more attractive to the buying public. The genius insight into the mutually supporting relationship between band and fans in Jerry's famous pronouncement "after we're done with making it, people can do whatever they want with it" (paraphrase) was good enough to inspire generations to love the Dead's music, as well as buy lots of it. Thanks for the chance to explain that wisdom to an established member of the last generation with the insights of a free younger person. I feel like I just dosed Kesey.
BTW, who stole the "hammer and tong" comment in your blog from whom: you or Barlow? Or is it just serendipity, or some kind of lateral flashback?
So why does the "virus network" require separate honeypots? Why can't the existing servers detect the viruses the same way the honeypots would, and notify each other?
The Constitution specifies how the government is to protect our rights. Those rights exist independently of the Constitution or any law. The laws, and the government, are created by the people to protect our rights.
Google might actually honor that promise not to share the callee info. But what about their cutrate knockoff competitors? The US needs privacy laws like the EU. You'd think that the Constitutional "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated" would protect our "papers and effects" against searches violating representations of privacy, but it obviously isn't. A new privacy amendment would be great, but Americans have been so numbed lately by threats to amend the Constitution to discrimimate against gays and protect flags that it won't even be seriously considered. We could try a federal law, and when that's not enough, maybe get the amendment to protect this fundamental right. Easy abuse of personal info in convenience features like this Google feature will set the stage.
Why do they need dedicated honeypots? Why not just include software in SMTP servers that lets them notify each other when they identify a virus locally? An SMTP operator could subscribe to several dozen peers, in a network of trust. When their own threshold of peers reporting the same virus is reached, they've got a hit.
Maybe this is a good application for the Usenet tech, to flood the trust networks with info rapidly, reliably, and without a centralized authority that itself can be attacked or otherwise compromised. Most of this tech already exists. We don't need 800K new servers that do nothing else, when we've got even more that also serve mail. Maybe the researchers are setting up a spinoff security network. But their research actually points to a better system than relying on them for more than the starting point.
How come the insane anti-American tyrannists who favor guns also favor Bush's trashing the Posse Comitatus Act, which prevents Bush from commandeering National Guards and effectively invading American states, without the required invitation of the state governor?
You try to make a practical argument for private guns, to oppose the Federal military. But the practical reality is that such ragtag opposition would be mowed down - the best we could hope for is an Iraq-style meatgrinder. And I can't compare Americans' will to resist to that of the organized, financed, trained (by Saddam, foreigners and the US) Iraqi insurgents, hardened over generations. In practical terms, such American resistance would just justify more military killing and suppression, and make the government look justified in wiping out "hooligans" as they'd inevitably be represented in the media. Big gangs like the Bloods, Crips, Latin Kings would have superiority - and it's obvious that their keeping and bearing arms is doing a lot more harm than any theoretical good.
The practical role for the people to counterbalance Federal tyranny is long overdue. Questioning the media PR for current tyranny and lies. Resisting the force-backed attacks by unaccountable police and lawyers (like the UnPatriot Act). And organizing to hold politicians accountable for sending our soldiers into corporate wars before sending them back to enforce martial law or other contrived coups on our liberty. All this wasted time, dividing the people on dangerous hobbies, has damaged the unity that is our most important asset in resisting any tyranny. No surprise that the tyranny level has risen so far already. Maybe if we were to regain all that lost ground, we could proceed to crank down our so often abused standing army, and try the militia model. Until then, the actual enemy is proven and obvious.
No, the US paid for its oil illegally, as it says a mere two sentences prior in the article to which I linked: "In all, Berkovitz said that the 525 million barrels of Iraqi oil -- about 660,000 barrels per day -- that ended up in U.S. hands during the two-year surcharge period amounted to $118 million in illegal surcharges paid to Iraq by the United States".
The next two sentences say "Bayoil was responsible for importing 200 million of the 525 million barrels of oil received by the United States, he said. The committee singled out the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control, which the United Nations repeatedly warned about Bayoil's scheme".
So you're just lying to attack me. You probably don't even hesitate long enough to click the link I posted. You don't care about Oil for Food, Iraq, the truth or anything else. You just lurk around waiting for a chance to call me childish names and lie about real matters that concern real adults. Get out of the way and take your petty vendettas out on yourself.
'"This means that oil imported into the U.S. financed about 52 percent of the illegal surcharges paid to the Hussein regime ... These percentages roughly correspond to the percentages of Iraqi oil sent to the U.S. and elsewhere during this period," Berkovitz said '
In other words, America accounted for more of the Oil for Food scams than everyone else combined, even excluding foreign proxies for Americans. I think the French word for that is "touché", or maybe "merde de taureau".